Helms Bakery in Culver City

 Helms Bakery @ 3220 Helms Ave Los Angeles, CA 90034

Most Los Angelenos my age or older probably felt, deep in our hearts, that it was just a matter of time before someone capitalized on a reincarnation of the Helms Bakery LA legend. It took decades but it has finally appeared.

In the 2000's , I was doing some work with St. Elmo Village  and on their Board was Wally Marks III. He was a great guy and very open to the arts at the time. He was basically in charge of the Helms Bakery complex. One of the things I was especially rooting was his restoration of their neon/ animation light sign.

The building has gone through a lot different directives but today, theirs a cafe called Helms Bakery and while it isn't really as history echoing as I would like, it's still a great place to grab a coffee and pastry and maybe some shopping (I got to boxes of some wildly awesome crackers).

I was surprised there wasn't a Helms Bakery truck on site. There used to be one parked on the north parking lot and there's a replica on the south end wall but not a whole-actual-restored truck at the shop called Helms Bakery.  Also, there's no jelly donut, which is what I and most of my friends would get when the Helms Truck would come around Memorial Park (across the street from LA High). 

I grew up with a bunch a great boys and girls who lived on Mullen Avenue back in the mid 1970's. If you've never had the joy of holding in your palms a warm freshly made jelly donut, I hope someday you do.

Decades later, in the Metro Art office, Z would bring jelly donuts every Hanukkah for us to share with a hot cup of coffee or tea. I wonder what Z thinks about what has happened with Israel? Does it taint her beautiful memory of jelly donuts from street vendors in the streets of Israel?